The plasma globe, a Larry Albright special. This commercial model was called “Eye of the Storm.”

Plasma globes also make for clever advertising such as this Smirnoff consumer piece.

This set of mass-produced plasma globes includes an illuminated bottle of Doc’s Hard Lemonade.

Larry Albright also created special effects for films, such as this miniature neon-bordered hotel for One from the Heart, a 1981 film set in Las Vegas and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Night shot of the mini hotel.

To appreciate the scale of the mini hotel, here are team members from MONA examining the piece.

A plasma globe art piece named “Arthur Jr.”

Another plasma globe, this one entitled “Aladdin’s Lamp.” Albright often placed these on old-time radios or similar early 1900’s electronics.

A 1940’s clock.

Another Albright signature piece — the crackle tube — literal lightning in a bottle.

This piece is entitled “Deco Lady.”

A closer look at the plasma globe held aloft by “Deco Lady.”

Albright also contributed to the 1977 landmark Steven Spielberg film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He created some of the special effects involving the famous “mother ship.” Here we see a mother ship rendering by Gregory Jein, a Chinese-American model designer who created miniatures for special effects.

An issue of Cinefantastique also features the Close Encounters mother ship.

Larry Albright ephemera with notes and photos from Close Encounters.

More ephemera from the Albright studio. Underneath “Reddy Kilowatt” is a copy of The Noble Gases by Isaac Asimov.

And here’s Reddy Kilowatt — a cartoon character that served as a corporate spokesman for electricity generation for more than seven decades — doing what it does best: Arcing electrical currents inside a plasma globe.

An electrostatic plasma display. “Plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe, but relatively uncommon on earth,” according to MONA Executive Director Corrie Siegel. “Larry Albright was able to bring the cosmic to our fingertips.”

Close-up of the electrostatic plasma display.

In the hands of the light artist: preparing a Geissler tube for display.

Not every Albright art piece lit up, at least not all the time. We’ll close with the “Tesla Quack Medical Device,” a nod to Nicola Tesla’s belief in the healing power of electricity. To see more, check out “Larry Albright: A Great Magic Truth,” March 29 through Sept. 8 at MONA in Glendale, CA.